The first is that where labor is allocated is a function of culture. We currently live in a consumerist culture. Consumerist culture wants cheap stuff and lots of it and it wants it now. Convenience is god. And we want money so we can keep buying more things and newer things, so we work and work to make that money. Old things are frozen into museum pieces alien to everyday life instead of undergoing use and development and enrichment, because they make no sense to us and we can't develop things as we don't have a direction. So whereas a gothic church may have previously received baroque spires if the gothic was meager, today, most modifications are bound to look like a downgrade. Think of the really awful proposals for the rebuilding of Notre Dame. Save for a few brain damaged architects, nobody liked them.
The second is that leisure is the source of all culture. I'm not talking about recreation or relaxing by the pool with a piña colada (nothing wrong with that per se, but this is not what leisure means). Leisure is activity that isn't oriented toward practical ends, at least not in the intention. They are the activity of a free man, at least at that moment. This spirit of leisure was at times festive, at times contemplative and worshipful (the highest form of leisure), at times something artistic and musical. Today, we live in a world of total work. Work defines us. Whereas the cultures that produced the beautiful architecture we all admire today worked for the sake of leisure, today we work for the sake of work. We are engines running in a parking lot. We can rev them at high horsepower, perhaps even move aimlessly around the parking lot, but we aren't going anywhere. We don't have an address to go to.
The word "culture" is related to the word "cult" and "cultivation". Whereas in previous ages people believed in the transcendent end of human persons, a belief that ordered their lives and generated their culture, what does a consumerist culture take as the highest good? What is the end of our lives if not the ash heap? This can only produce weariness and distraction and entertainment that has no patience for authentic play or for the kinds of efforts that outlive us. There is no love in consumerism. There is no heroism. There is no genuine awe inspired by a great, honest-to-God promise. There is no festivity or celebration. The salt has lost its flavor and is good for nothing except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
The first is that where labor is allocated is a function of culture. We currently live in a consumerist culture. Consumerist culture wants cheap stuff and lots of it and it wants it now. Convenience is god. And we want money so we can keep buying more things and newer things, so we work and work to make that money. Old things are frozen into museum pieces alien to everyday life instead of undergoing use and development and enrichment, because they make no sense to us and we can't develop things as we don't have a direction. So whereas a gothic church may have previously received baroque spires if the gothic was meager, today, most modifications are bound to look like a downgrade. Think of the really awful proposals for the rebuilding of Notre Dame. Save for a few brain damaged architects, nobody liked them.
The second is that leisure is the source of all culture. I'm not talking about recreation or relaxing by the pool with a piña colada (nothing wrong with that per se, but this is not what leisure means). Leisure is activity that isn't oriented toward practical ends, at least not in the intention. They are the activity of a free man, at least at that moment. This spirit of leisure was at times festive, at times contemplative and worshipful (the highest form of leisure), at times something artistic and musical. Today, we live in a world of total work. Work defines us. Whereas the cultures that produced the beautiful architecture we all admire today worked for the sake of leisure, today we work for the sake of work. We are engines running in a parking lot. We can rev them at high horsepower, perhaps even move aimlessly around the parking lot, but we aren't going anywhere. We don't have an address to go to.
The word "culture" is related to the word "cult" and "cultivation". Whereas in previous ages people believed in the transcendent end of human persons, a belief that ordered their lives and generated their culture, what does a consumerist culture take as the highest good? What is the end of our lives if not the ash heap? This can only produce weariness and distraction and entertainment that has no patience for authentic play or for the kinds of efforts that outlive us. There is no love in consumerism. There is no heroism. There is no genuine awe inspired by a great, honest-to-God promise. There is no festivity or celebration. The salt has lost its flavor and is good for nothing except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.